And Greer Weston looked like a force to be reckoned with.
“Yeah, and three from Surrendered,” Grant countered. “Long shots, all of them.”
“We’ll see.”
The car pulled up at the entrance to the hotel. Ryker looked at the ornate façade of the building through the dark window and remained perfectly still. Grant hesitated with his left foot on the ground, ready to exit the vehicle.
“You coming?” he asked cautiously.
Ryker shook his head, not turning to face him. “No. I think I’ll go grab a drink somewhere.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
“All night?”
“What are you? My babysitter?” Ryker snapped, frowning at his friend. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big boy.”
Grant stared back at him impassively, unfazed by his attitude. He was used to it by now. It was par for the course during the last year. “I’m worried about you drinking alone, man,” he said gently. “You’re in a tricky place right now. You don’t need any more bad press. It’d be better to lay low until we get this concert under your belt.”
He was right and Ryker knew it, but as he looked up at the building and the walls and the silence and the loneliness, he couldn’t do it. He knew exactly what would happen. He’d end up pacing the room until the sun came up, bouncing off the walls that confined him and constrained him, wondering where he would rather be than where he was. He never found an answer because no matter where he tried to lay his head, he always found himself in the same position. Pacing.
“I need a couple drinks to come down,” he told Grant, feeling like he was pleading with him. “I won’t be able to go to sleep right now.”
“I have your Ambien prescription with me.”
“I don’t need pills to sleep.”
“Then you don’t need booze either.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“No, it’s worse. At least what I have for you is prescribed by a doctor. What you’re doing is self-medicating.”
“It’s just alcohol.”
“Is it?”
Ryker scowled. “Seriously? Even you think I’m doing drugs? You’re sitting here trying to shove pills down my throat!”
“Not those kinds of pills.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Ryker muttered, rubbing his hand tiredly over his face.
“I found ‘em, Ry,” Grant told him heavily. “I found the pills in your bedroom last week.”
Ryker lifted his head to his friend, stunned and confused. “What pills in my room?”
“The little white ones in the baggy. No markings, no bottle, no script. What are they?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
“Be real with me, man. I’m trying to help you.”
“I’m being real with you, Grant! I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Grant frowned. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”
“As a fucking heart attack. I don’t use. I never have.”
“Then where did they come from?”
“Probably Lexy,” he replied angrily. “She was staying over a lot toward the end and we both know she was a popper.”
Grant sighed, sounding both relieved and annoyed. “We’ll have to sweep the whole place and see if she stashed anything anywhere else in there. I don’t want your cleaning lady finding anything and taking it to the press.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“Alright, well I’m going inside. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come inside. I’ll get a drink at the hotel bar with you and then you’ll go to your room. Don’t go out. Not tonight. Not alone. Nothing good can come of it.”
Ryker smiled slightly, glancing at the clock on the car’s dash. Twelve-twenty three. “My mom used to say nothing good happened after midnight.”
“She was a smart woman.”
“Will you get all up in my shit if I take an Ambien with a beer?”
“If you pass out in this hotel instead of on a park bench, I’ll give your shit a rest for the night.”
“For the week.”
“The weekend.”
“Deal.”
Two hours later Ryker was in his hotel room with a second beer in his hand, an Ambien in his stomach, and a discreet knock on his door. He walked to it purposefully, not bothering to put a shirt on. His jeans hung low on his waist as he opened the door and nodded numbly to the brunette on the other side.
She smiled brightly, her cheeks quivering slightly with nervousness. “I’m so glad you called,” the stewardess told him.
He stepped aside for her to come in, noting the uniform she still wore. When he’d called she told him that they were just landing in New York from their latest run and she could be there in an hour if she went home and changed. Sooner if she wore her uniform. He’d told her to get there ASAP, not bothering to mention she was racing the chemicals in his body. As it was, he was feeling tired and woozy. A little off balance and a whole lot faded but he wasn’t there yet. He couldn’t sleep. He needed to be pushed over the edge.
Once the door was closed, he was on her. His mouth closed over hers and he swallowed her gasp, but to her credit she didn’t hesitate. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his as he pushed her back into the penthouse living room. She kicked off her high heels, falling an easy two inches in height and making him hunch to work for her mouth. He picked her up and she quickly wrapped her legs around his waist. He didn’t bother with the bed. He didn’t bother with the couch, even. Instead he pressed her up against the window and reached up to push her underwear aside, then he quickly undid his belt.
He reached for her and groaned in annoyance. She wasn’t wet, not yet. He needed her wet. He needed this to be fast and easy. He needed to sleep.
He dropped his dick and found her head, swirling his finger over the tender flesh as she gasped and moaned. When he slid two fingers inside her and found her channel wet and waiting he wasted no time sliding a condom over his dick and then directly into her.
She shouted at the suddenness, then mewled and whined as he worked her slowly, soothing the ache he’d created. He thrust until he could feel her pulling on him, pushing down on him and the fire started to burn in his gut. He moved faster, chasing the flames and begging them to burn him out. To singe his flesh and leave him pained and destroyed.
Ryker pushed her hard to the brink until she was a quaking mass above him, then he took for himself. He went with abandon, bouncing her against the glass as she cried out over and over, careening over the edge again until he came with her and filled the space between them with warmth and emptiness.
He sent her home immediately afterward. He’d never learned her name.
He was asleep before she reached the lobby.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Where the hell is he?” Samantha asked irritably.
Greer spun her drink in front of her, the amber liquid swirling up to the edge of the glass, threatening to spill over, then settling back down inside. “Be patient. He’s coming.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” the other woman muttered.
Greer lifted her glass and threw back the drink. She kept her cool on the outside, but as the burning liquid and the lateness of the hour settled into her, she cringed.
John was supposed to meet them for drinks an hour ago. Where was he?
“He said he’d try,” Bryce reminded her. “He never said he was going to make it. It’s late, I’m tired. Let’s call it a night.”
He wanted to go to sleep and Greer didn’t blame him. She was exhausted as well. It was almost two in the morning and the show had closed hours ago. The rest of the company was long gone, the four of them – Greer, Bryce, Cameron, and Samantha – all that remained.
“You go ahead,” Greer told Bryce. “I’ll stay and wait for him. Make sure he’s alright.”
Bryce was on his feet before she finished spea
king. He waved goodnight to her and Cameron, ignored Samantha, and disappeared into the crowd.
“I have to hit the head,” Cameron said, standing as well. “Then I’m going to take a walk.”
“Don’t go far,” Greer reminded him. “It’s late and—“
“I know,” he agreed quietly before kissing her forehead, his alcohol laced breath wafting warm across her face. She was thinking of the old days, the days when you didn’t go out on your own at night. Cameron had let that part of his guard down as though having money changed anything, but Greer never could. Fear was fear and it didn’t care what your bank account had to say about it. “I’ll stay close.”
“Where’s my kiss?” Samantha teased, smirking.
Cameron flinched faintly, then awkwardly bumped knuckles with her instead. Samantha cast him a bemused look of confusion as he hurried away.
Greer wished Samantha would go. She didn’t mind the girl, but they had little to nothing to talk about. Samantha was a Barbie with a biker’s attitude, a contrast that men adored and Greer found grating. It sometimes felt like an act. Like the woman was constantly on, and even as an actress herself, Greer had trouble with the never-ending performance. It was something Sam had in common with Eve and the similarity made her uncomfortable.
“Why are you so concerned with seeing John tonight?” Samantha asked suddenly.
“What are you talking about?”
“Anna didn’t show either. You’re not upset over that.” Samantha sat back with her drink, falling into the shadows and studying Greer closely. “You got a thing for him?”
“A thing for who?” she asked, playing stupid.
“John,” Sam pushed.
“He’s just as invested in this production as all of us have been. He should have come out with us to say goodbye.”
“He’d love to give you more than a goodbye.”
“Shut up,” Greer warned, not bothering with civility anymore.
Sam grinned at her anger. “Did I hit a sore spot?”
“You hit a nerve, yea, so shut the fuck up and mind your own business.”
“Whoa, what’d I miss?” Cameron asked, showing up beside Greer and looking between the two hostile women.
“I thought you were taking a walk,” Sam said conversationally, unruffled by Greer’s anger toward her.
“I wanted to finish my beer first. What’s happening?”
“I was asking about her sex life,” Samantha answered openly. “Just wondering if she and John were sleeping together.”
Cameron laughed. “No.”
“Why is it funny?” Greer asked indignantly.
“Do you want to sleep with him, Greer?”
“No.”
“Then who gives a shit why I think it’s funny?”
“I already asked if you were sleeping with Cameron,” Samantha told her. “Don’t worry, he said no.”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone!” Greer shouted in annoyance.
They both looked at her sadly.
“It’s nothing to be proud of, sweetie,” Samantha chastised.
“When are we giving up the ghost of John showing up here?” Cameron asked, stifling a yawn. “They’ll be closing soon and we have job hunts waiting for us in the morning.”
Greer nodded in glum agreement, checking her phone for the hundredth time in the last half hour. No text, no call. No word from John. It was time to throw in the towel.
Cameron put Samantha in a cab then walked Greer home. It was fifteen blocks away full of chilled evening air and damp New York streets twitching with shadows at every corner that made me Greer flinch and her heart flutter in her chest. Old habits die hard.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked Cameron hesitantly.
“As long as it’s not that you’re sleeping with John, sure.”
“What is everyone’s deal with the idea of me sleeping with the director?! If I was sleeping with him, don’t you think I’d have a better part?”
He grinned. “What’s your secret?”
“I have an audition tomorrow.”
“Really?” His voice was odd. Surprised, but not really.
“Yeah.”
“When did you get it?”
“Tonight. After the show. There was—“
“Someone in the audience?” he asked, looking down at her.
She gaped up at him. “You too?”
“Did you get approached by his assistant? Grant Benedict?”
“No. I, um, I got approached by him.”
Cameron stopped her, pulling on her arm laced through his to spin her around where he could see her face. “You met Jace Ryker? He spoke to you?”
“Yeah,” she admitted breathlessly, a smile tugging at her lips.
“And you’re just now telling me?”
“He said it was a secret. That the auditions are invitation only and he asked me not to talk about it.”
“That’s what Grant said too. But holy shit, you met Jace Ryker? He’s your wet dream!”
She shoved his shoulder, turning to walk again. “Shut up! He is not.”
“What was he like?”
“Brooding. Intense. Kinda dark.”
“Huh. Not what I’d expect.”
“Maybe he’s having a bad night.”
“Maybe.”
“What time is your audition?”
“First thing in the morning. It’s why I wanted to get out of the bar and get to bed.” He nudged her shoulder with his arm. “You?”
“One in the afternoon. Did you ask what it was for?”
“Yeah, but he said that wasn’t something he could talk about. I asked if I had to get naked and he promised that no, there was no nudity.”
“I probably should have asked that.”
Cameron laughed. “I would love to have been there to see you ask Jace Ryker if he wanted you to get naked. I’m sure you would have already been stripping as you asked.”
“He’s not that hot,” she replied flippantly, lying through her teeth.
“Yeah, okay,” Cameron chuckled. “Sure.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
He hadn’t done it. He’d done everything he could, most of which he regretted and hated himself for, and he still hadn’t been able to save his show.
John wanted to be angry with Eve for fucking them over and leaving them in a lurch, but if he was the talented director he was supposed to be it shouldn’t have mattered. He should have found a better leading lady to replace her and made the show work without her. He should have replaced Cameron and his sour, mournful face that refused to find a connection to Anna, no matter how hard she tried.
But he’d been drinking too much, sleeping too long and at the wrong hours, and there was nothing he could do to pull the show from the nosedive it was taking.
And now Jace fucking Ryker was poaching his people.
“John?”
Anna stood in the doorway of the dark studio, hesitating at the threshold.
He sighed, not bothering to turn around. Instead he looked out at the dark street below him and wondered why he was there? Why did he continue to come here day after day as though they’d show up and the show would miraculously go on? But now here was Anna and he worried for a second that he was imagining her.
“What?” he barked.
“Are you alright?”
“Perfect. Rehearsal has been cancelled. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“I did.” He heard her take a step inside. Two. Three. “Did you?”
He laughed darkly. “Every last one of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we were shut down before we were shut down.”
Four steps. Five. Six. She was close. “How many times?”
“Three,” he croaked, gagging on the word. On the memories of every time.
“How did we keep going?”
“Because I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t let it go.”
“I don’t underst—“
He turne
d to her abruptly, his face pinched and angry, hiding all the ways he’d sold out to save them. All of the ways he hadn’t been enough. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you,” she answered gently. “I came to see if you were okay.”
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
“Because I know you can’t give up.” Seven. “I know you can’t let it go.”
He stared at her young, hopeful face and he hurt inside. She was killing him and he wished she’d go, but some sick part of him wanted her to stay. He wanted to look at her beautiful fresh face and drink it in, let it fill him and push out the ugly and the old that he’d been living with. He wanted her hope to be his, to take it from her and call it his own, but he didn’t like the idea of what that would do to her. He didn’t like the idea of what that would make him, so he stepped past her and headed for the door.
“I’ll get you a cab,” he told her. He held the door open for her, his eyes cast to the ground.
She walked through the studio toward him; seven, six, five, four, three, two…
“Is it over?” she whispered, her small body only a step away from him. “Are we giving up? After everything we’ve done, we’re just quitting?”
He looked up at her and shook his head. “It’s over.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He scowled at her. “It’s not a debate, sweetheart. It’s a fact.”
“Let’s start over,” she insisted. “Let’s find a new theater off Broadway and start again. We’ll work out the kinks and we’ll come back. The show is good, you know that. It just needs a little help.”
“It’s not that easy. Meredith is done with it. She’s buried us, she’ll never resurrect it.”
“Fuck Meredith,” Anna shot back angrily.
John was taken aback. Anna was such a sweet, soft spoken girl. He’d never even heard her swear. But now she stared him down with anger in her eyes and venom on her tongue, and he couldn’t believe the transformation he was seeing. Where was this passion when she was on the stage?
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